A Hand to Hold
by ChasingtheCosmos
Summary: A (sort of) season re-write centering around the Doctor's touch telepathy and the many inconvenient ways that it gets between him and his new companion, Rose Tyler. This work is based around Season 1 and the Ninth Doctor. This story is the first in a series of three. Originally posted on AO3.
1. Rose

A/N: The first few chapters will simply be snapshots of the Doctor's POV during events in Season 1. Missing scenes will come in starting at Chapter 5.

* * *

The first time that it happened, it was so quick that he barely noticed it.

He grabbed her hand and gave her a command, just as he had done to so many others before her. And, because she was scared and in danger and had nowhere else to turn, she obeyed.

The Doctor grasped her hand in his and whispered, "_Run_!"

He didn't expect the simple, unobtrusive touch to set off fireworks in his brain. It wasn't as if she were the first human he had ever grabbed and hauled off by the hand, after all - and he liked to believe that she would be far from the last - but it had been so long since he had been around other sentient races, and his mental shields had gone ignored for far too long.

It wasn't really as simple as that, though. This girl was different. She just felt _so much_ \- her emotions rolling off of her and into him in such vibrant, colorful waves that he had to blink hard and force himself to focus on the actual matter at hand (no pun intended).

He told himself that it was simply because she was still so young - just a mere human teenager fighting for the chance to extend her short little life for at least a few moments longer. But as her fear and confusion (and was that a little bit of ... _excitement_?) thrummed through her and pulsed up his arm, the Doctor wondered if that assumption was entirely correct. He couldn't remember the last time that he had felt anyone else's emotions as strongly as he was picking up hers.

It wasn't until the dummy's arm had been dismembered and the lift was finally rattling its way upwards that he realized that he wasn't even holding her hand anymore. He had had to drop it at some point during their mad escape from the encroaching autons.

"You pulled his arm off!" she protested disbelievingly from somewhere behind him.

The Doctor stared at the lifeless limb for a moment, trying very hard not to marvel over the fact that this new hand in his was so dead, dull, and lifeless compared to her own. He tossed it casually her way, deciding that it might be best to keep his hands to himself for a bit. Or, at least until he could steady his thoughts and force himself to focus.

He spent the rest of the ride up with his arms crossed tightly across his chest, fighting hard against the itching instinct to reach out and grab her hand once more - just to feel those bright, colorful emotions humming in his mind again. Her thoughts were so sharp and alive and so very, _very _different from what he had grown accustomed to as of late.

He silently reminded himself to stop being foolish and, as he had been trained to do his entire life, the Doctor blocked both her emotions and his own and got on with what needed to be done.

* * *

The Doctor had quite intended never to see the girl again. Rose, her name was. He had wanted to turn his back and walk away without tempting himself with learning any more about her, but at the last minute he just _had _to run back and ask. He had to at least know her name.

And then he had accidentally tracked her down to her flat, of all places. Despite the very insistent, very _annoying _warning light going off in the back of his head the entire time, the Doctor still couldn't manage to suppress his need to know _more_.

She didn't seem too keen on letting him get away without some answers of her own, either. She followed him all the way back to the TARDIS and he was beginning to wonder if he might just accidentally (although, _was _it really an accident if he was planning for it?) lead her right into it.

"Really, though, Doctor. Tell me - who are you?"

The sudden question brought him up short. It had been a while since anyone had asked him this question, and so much had happened since his days of rambling about through space and time and coming up with silly little half-truths and fantastical stories for the people who he helped in order to conceal the real truth of who he was. How could he respond to this young human girl, who was so bright and alive and looked at him as though he were the most fantastic puzzle that she wanted to dig in and solve?

Still, he decided to indulge her and spun a quick story in response. Old habits made the non-answer fall easily from his lips, though he could see her soaking in every word as though her very life depended on it.

He didn't realize that he had reached out for her until her hand was in his once more and he felt her wonder and amazement bloom behind his eyes, spinning the story faster and faster as her bright, colorful emotions encouraged him further.

"We're falling through space, you and me - clinging to the skin of this tiny little world," he muttered, fighting to reign in the story before it got too far out ahead of him. The Doctor could already feel himself getting carried away - swept up in the tide of her thoughts. She was standing right next to him, watching him with a silent, thoughtful look, but she may as well have been shouting for how loudly she was begging for him to keep going.

"And if we let go ..." He forced himself to drop her hand and he chose to ignore the way that it swung limply at her side, as though she had suddenly been untethered from the only thing keeping her grounded to this small planet.

"No, forget me, Rose Tyler," he commanded, begging her to once more do her part and listen. He needed for her to go back to her normal life and forget about him, as so many others before her had. He needed for her to walk back to her cozy little flat with her mum and her human life and her job (she would find a _new _job, wouldn't she?) and never turn back to look over her shoulder.

"Go home," he ordered, turning away quickly so that he, himself, wouldn't fall prey to the temptation to turn and run after her.

* * *

Of course, fate always seemed to have her own ideas on the subject, and the Doctor ran into her for a third time in two days, much to his chagrin (or was it excitement?). Thankfully, in the chaos of saving the world, he didn't have too much time to unravel that thought.

_This_ was why he had taken up traveling again. Too many long hours of silence with no one but himself to keep him company had not been good for him. He needed noise and laughter and yes, sometimes even tears, to keep the thoughts that haunted him in the quiet at bay.

And Rose was fantastic, just as he had imagined she might be. She was smart and curious and unafraid, even going so far as to challenge him when he let his frustrations get the better of him. He was finding it very hard to continue convincing himself to leave her behind when this was all over and done with.

He had spent years (he refused to count how many) convincing himself that he was better off alone. But this human girl with her sunny smile and her fierce determination were suddenly enough to make him question those long-held beliefs.

_You're getting old_, he told himself even as they darted head-long down the dark London streets. He reached for her hand one last time, desperate to find something in her touch to convince him otherwise. He wanted to find fear, hesitation, or anything, really, that would prove to him once and for all that she was really better suited to an easy life here on Earth.

But as her skin brushed against his for the third time, the Doctor found nothing but determination and adrenaline pumping through her veins, matching his own so closely that it took him a moment to find the line where she ended and he began.

_Maybe this will be a good_ thing, he tried desperately to convince himself. But the Doctor had spent so many lifetimes lying to himself. He was almost good at it, and he very nearly believed it.


	2. The End of the World

The Doctor never asked twice - _never_. Not in this way, at least. There was really no need. Most people already knew whether or not they wanted to drop everything and run off with a strange alien before he ever had to ask. And those who second-guessed or wanted time to think it over weren't exactly the type of people who he wanted to take with him anyway.

But he made an exception for Rose - the girl who shined so brightly and felt so deeply that it knocked the wind from his lungs every time they touched.

Because of this, he did his very best to keep his hands to himself as he opened the doors to Platform One and showed her the end of her pretty, little world. And he was doing a good job of it, too - disasters and impending death had a way of focusing a person and distracting them from the things that they didn't necessarily want to think about.

But then there she was - looking at the flaming bits of rock and dust left behind in the aftermath. Her emotions were so strong that he didn't need to be touching her to feel them. They overflowed and filled the room around her so powerfully that the Doctor figured he might as well stop trying to be so closed-off and go ahead and offer her the comfort that her subconscious was so desperately calling out for.

"Come with me," he told her. And just as she always did in quiet moments like this, she obeyed.

With her hand in his, she reluctantly turned her back on what little remained of her home planet. He could feel the burden settling on her shoulders the same way that it had settled on his. It was the burden of being the last - the only one left behind to pick up the pieces after everything was said and done with.

The Doctor wondered idly if this was the reason that the TARDIS had brought them here. Had his ship been trying to tell him something? He shivered and decided not to let his thoughts linger on such a morose thought.

He also refused to unpack the small seed of relief that he could feel burning hot in his chest. He regretted having to drag Rose into all of this, but if he had to continue to suffer and go on as the last of the Time Lords, at least he wouldn't have to do it alone ...

No, the Doctor pushed all of those thoughts aside and instead focused on Rose. He was happy to note that there wasn't even a whisper of fear in her mind, though there was still a lingering sense of doubt left behind by his refusal to answer any of her questions. However, the thing roaring through her thoughts most prominently and drowning out all else was the deep, weighty sensation of sorrow. _That_, at least, the Doctor knew plenty about.

So he took her back to her time on Earth and did his best to rectify both of those emotions, not daring to reach for her as he solemnly laid out as much truth as he could bare to tell her. His fingers itched with the need to know her mind as she silently appraised him and seemed to war within herself, but he didn't dare cross the thin line that lay between them as she contemplated her choices.

He was so close ... The Doctor could easily reach out and take her hand under the guise of offering or asking for comfort, but no - he left her to her thoughts and quietly bit the inside of his cheek in an attempt to remain patient. If she wanted to stay behind on Earth, he would (he _would_) leave her be. He would have to.

"I want chips," she finally announced decidedly.

And chips, the Doctor suddenly decided, were just about the most fantastic thing in all of existence. Why didn't more planets have chips? He should really take her to Telasoria where they salted and friend long strips of the berut vegetable ...

But all thoughts of comfort food and alien planets immediately disappeared as Rose bumped playfully against the Doctor's shoulder, slipping her hand into his as easily as though she had been doing it her whole life.

And then they were just there - walking down the busy streets of London like any other normal, human couple. Except, of course, for the fact that he was entirely _not _human, and also that he could read each and every single one of her thoughts as though she were shouting them out loud.

She was happy - and that fact both startled and surprised her, but not enough to dim the eager, excited smile on her face. She was mentally and emotionally exhausted, but she felt oddly powerful and supported with him at her side. She was so pleased to have witnessed him open up to her - even just this little bit - and the truth she had uncovered hadn't frightened her in the least.

No, on the contrary, she was no more determined than ever to stay by the Doctor's side and help him. Oh, how he longed to give her a glimpse into his own thoughts in that moment. If only Rose could see the full extent of it - then she would surely be turning and running in the opposite direction, just as she probably should.

The Doctor suddenly realized - far, _far _too late - that this hand-holding thing might be becoming a problem ...


	3. The Unquiet Dead

History, the Doctor decided, had its definite pros and cons.

The cons were that, in an effort to blend in with the local culture, Rose Tyler was now wearing a period, floor-length dress that was distracting in a way that he stubbornly refused to analyze.

_This is why you shouldn't travel alone, _he reminded himself wryly. _You're out of practice dealing with human women, old man. _But he decided to ignore that piece of information for now and simply made a mental note to try and steer the TARDIS towards times and places where such an occurrence wouldn't have to happen again.

The pros were that, with social and societal customs being what they were, keeping Rose's hands tucked comfortably into the crook of his leather-clad elbow was much more acceptable than taking her by the hand and risking the chance of flooding his senses with her thoughts and emotions.

However, that particular rule was quickly thrown out of the window as her terrified screams filled the small funeral parlor and he kicked down the door to find her in the arms of a walking dead man.

"I think this is my dance," he announced blithely as he wasted no time in taking Rose's arm and pulling her back to his side, where she rightfully belonged.

He made sure to keep the touch brief, but in the span of just a few seconds her relief and excitement upon seeing him made him bold, and at the last second he decided to keep his arm looped around her, making sure that he could still feel her presence at his side.

The Doctor found that he didn't feel any fear at all as he faced off against the blue-faced dead people and ardently refused to read into the thought of how _right _it felt to have Rose there with him ...

* * *

Then, of course, it all went a bit wrong (as it so often did), and suddenly the two of them were stuck in a basement in Cardiff surrounded by alien zombies.

During their mad dash to find a small pocket of safety, the Doctor could feel Rose's doubt in him finally beginning to creep in, and he knew that it was time for more hard truths to be spoken.

Still, she refused to give up, and she faced death with a confident glare as she muttered, "We'll go down fighting, yeah?"

"Yeah," he replied lamely. Because what else could he possibly say? How could he possibly put into words all of the awe and respect that he felt for this young, brave human? How could he tell her how her faith in him and her refusal to lay down and die had given him the courage to look death in the face and not feel even an ounce of fear?

"Together?" she clarified, her wide brown eyes blinking up at him with a promise that almost looked like hope.

"Yeah." As though there could ever be any other response to Rose Tyler.

She fumbled for his hand as she stared down their encroaching death and her fierce determination instantly flooded through him, making him bold once more as he laced his fingers solidly with hers. He decided that if they truly were going to die, then he might as well reveal one more hard truth before they went.

"I'm so glad I met you."

Suddenly, the alien zombies and their promise of death might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy for all the attention that Rose Tyler gave them. Instead, she was searching his face and, due to the fact that her hand was still firmly grasped in his own, the Doctor didn't have to wonder what she was searching for.

She was shocked at his confession - at how personal and _human _it sounded. It might as well have been the cheesy last lines to some action movie right before the hero kissed the girl and they were both engulfed in a fiery blaze of heat.

She wondered for a moment if he said this to everyone he traveled with (he really, _really _didn't), but then she decided that she didn't much care. He was here, with _her_, right now, and that was all that mattered. She briefly let her gaze drop to his mouth, but she cut that thought short before it could get too much further ...

Still, she searched - trying to feel out the depth of his sincerity. In that moment, the Doctor was equally relieved and disappointed that she wasn't a touch telepath like him. What good would it do either of them if she could see her own breathless wonder reflected in him?

"Me, too," she finally replied, smiling radiantly up at him.

The Doctor found himself torn again - this time between irritation and relief - as the moment was suddenly interrupted by Dickens, who came barging in at the last moment to save them both from their nihilistic thoughts.

As the three of them stood outside in the snow and gazed up at the inferno that was slowly swallowing up the old mortuary, the Doctor decided once and for all that he refused to keep going on like this. What was the point in constantly being torn between his own traitorous hearts and what his mind clearly knew was best?

He _was _the last of the Time Lords, after all. He might as well start trying to act like one.

So, for the first time in his many lives, the Doctor determined to follow his head over his hearts. He decided to strengthen his mental barriers and stop allowing a human girl's emotions to be the one thing that determined their collective fates. And, above all, he resolved to _stop touching Rose Tyler._


	4. Aliens of London & World War Three

A/N: The first missing scene will be at the end of this chapter, with more to come!

* * *

The Doctor realized very quickly that touching wasn't his only problem when it came to Rose. Because, of course, they didn't need to be in physical contact for "I could save the world, but lose you," to come across loud and clear. And he didn't need to be holding her hand to see the small, shy smile that answered him more surely than words ever could.

All in all it was ... not what he had been expecting.

When they huddled into the cabinet room cupboard and prayed that it would be enough to save their lives, he grasped Rose and Harriet's hands in one final act of solidarity. With his mental shields firmly in place, there was nothing but a quiet buzz in his mind and the metallic taste of their collective fear on his tongue.

But he was tempted - _oh, _he was so very _tempted_ \- to lower those shields and have a peek at what was going through Rose's mind in that moment. She seemed to be just as determined to live now as she had been with the gelth in Cardiff, and he certainly could have used a shot of her unending optimism and bravery to give him one last boost of hope before the entirety of 10 Downing Street came crashing down around their heads. With Jackie Tyler's voice playing on an endless loop of guilt in the back of his head, the Doctor braced himself for impact and did his very best to be as confident as Rose was that they would survive.

However, he couldn't help but begin to wonder how many more times he might have to choose between Rose Tyler and the rest of the universe. It didn't seem to be a fair comparison at all. Should he really be expected to put the entire human race over the one girl who made him actually want to do the right thing?

But still, they managed to survive the many odds stacked against them, and they crawled out of the smoking rubble to live another day. And later, when he baited her back into the TARDIS with promises of plasma storms and explosions and adventures, he felt very little guilt over the matter. Well, that's what he _told _himself, anyway.

The trust was that he very much wished that Rose would turn him down and decide to stay with her mum for a bit. He had no doubt that Jackie had plenty of arguments that she could work into Rose's mind over time in order to convince her to stop taking such risks on a useless, old alien like him.

He even tried inviting _Mickey _on board in an attempt to bring a ... what should he call it? A buffer to keep him and Rose apart? A conscious reminder to Rose that she could have a normal and safe life if only she would let him go? A distraction from the growing tension between them and those ill-timed, regrettable words spoken when all hope seemed to be lost?

But, of course, the idiot wouldn't take the offer, and it was just the two of them on their own again when they took off back into the stars.

"You wouldn't really do it, though, would you, Doctor?" she asked him later once they were back in the safety of the vortex once more. "You wouldn't really just let all of humanity die like that, right?"

"Of course not!" he lied, throwing her a no-nonsense look from across the console.

"Oh," she muttered, not quite meeting his eye. "Good."

But the Doctor knew a thing or two about lies, and he wasn't about to let hers slide as easily as she had let his.

"'Good'?" he repeated dubiously.

"I mean, it's just that ... I think that this universe needs you, Doctor," she went on slowly. "And I just want to make sure that you haven't forgotten that. Especially ..."

He raised his eyebrows at her in a pointed look, patiently waiting for her to finish her thought. "Well, especially for someone as unimportant as me," she concluded hesitantly.

"Oh, alright, then. Good to know," the Doctor went on cheerily, refusing to match her suddenly solemn attitude. "The next time danger comes knocking I'll just leave you on your own, then, shall I?"

"I'm not saying that ..." she protested in frustration, but he circled the console and lay his hands heavily on her shoulders before she could finish whatever it was that she had intended to say.

"I promise I'm not going to just give up and let an entire planet burn just because I can't think of a better solution," he vowed, meeting her gaze head-on so that she might be able to see his sincerity in his expression. "But I'm not going to just abandon you, either."

"But what if you don't have a choice?" Rose insisted stubbornly. "What if there's no other way?"

"There's always another way." He didn't mean for it to sound like a lie, but he suspected that it might have been read as such anyway. But Rose didn't give any indication that she might not believe him, so - for the time being, at least - she went off to find her bed without any sort of protest.

The Doctor, however, took the time to ruminate. Over nine-hundred years and nine different lives he had seen so many faces come and go. He had an entire room on the TARDIS (buried deep, deep in the vaults where no one was ever permitted to go) dedicated entirely to their mementos and memories, because how else could he be expected to keep track? He cherished them all, of course, and their acts of bravery and love and everything that just made them so, so _human, _but so many of them were now reduced to mere pictures and names in his head.

He had to wonder if Rose would eventually share the same fate. Would she finally leave him behind in an attempt to live a normal life? Would she die on the battlefield with him on some alien planet lightyears away from Earth? Or would she wither away to nothing at his side, clinging to him for as long as she possibly could? Certain possibilities seemed more plausible than others, but none gave him any sort of satisfaction.

"Stupid, bloody idiot," he mumbled out loud to himself.

The TARDIS made a groaning noise at him, but the Doctor was too lost in his own thoughts to decipher whether it was chastisement or agreement.


	5. Dalek

Unfortunately, the universe seemed insistent that the Doctor make his choice between Earth and Rose Tyler, and the next fork in the road that they came across was perhaps the hardest - one that he hadn't even known was possible. And yet, surprisingly enough, the dalek made the decision very easy for him. Or maybe there hadn't really ever been a decision to make in the first place. Because when Rose Tyler was in danger, the Doctor would choose her every time, and he would continue to do so until one or both of them ran out of other options.

The dalek even managed to sum it all up in words that the Doctor could never quite seem to put together on his own - "What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?"

Still, the escape had been far too close for comfort, and having to think that she was dead - even for just a few moments - had been excruciating. By the end of it all, he was bone-tired and ready to put Utah, America, Earth as far behind him as he possibly could. In fact, he was so tired (and, if he were being honest, the overwhelming _guilt _certainly didn't help, either) that he even allowed Rose to bring her new mate (_pet_, the Doctor amended scornfully) Adam on board.

He saved his weary sigh until after Rose had offered to show Adam around, leaving the Doctor alone in the console room with nothing but his own thoughts and frustrations to keep him company. It wasn't nearly long enough, though. In fact, it was only thirteen minutes and nine seconds before his brooding was interrupted by a soft, familiar voice.

"Doctor?"

"Rose!" he replied, equal parts startled and weary. "What are you doing? Where's Adam?"

"Oh, he's just off having a wander," she answered with an unaffected shrug.

"You let him wander off by himself?" the Doctor asked, raising a dubious brow in her direction.

"The TARDIS seemed pretty content to babysit him," Rose replied, matching his dubious look easily (and when had she started using his own expressions against him? It was very unfair). "She led us right to the media room. Trust me, it'll take him at least a week to get through all of the alien games and videos she brought up for him. He was head-over-heels. I don't think we'll hear from him for a while."

"Well, you certainly know how to pick 'em," the Doctor grumbled under his breath, circling the console and turning his back to her so that she wouldn't be able to see his frustrated expression. It seemed that this Adam was turning out to be just like Rickey the Idiot - that is to say, small-minded and easily distracted. He couldn't quite wrap his head around why Rose bothered with these useless human boys. Didn't she realize that she could have her pick of the galaxy?

"I just ... I didn't think that you should be alone," Rose went on, either purposefully or unknowingly ignoring his mumbled words.

"What do you mean?" he asked as blithely as possible, tossing her a plastered-on smile over his shoulder and not quite meeting her eye.

"Doctor, you seemed so certain that there couldn't be anyone else ..." she continued slowly, clearly fighting to word her question in a way that would hurt him the least.

The Doctor merely kept his head down and continued to slowly circle the console, pushing buttons and flipping levers in an attempt to seem busy and distracted when in fact he was hanging on her every word.

"How can you be so sure?" she finally asked. "Maybe someone else survived the war. You can't give up so easily."

"Oh, of course his bright, young human companion would say that. It was one of the (many) reasons why he liked keeping her around - her refusal to back down and give up. She had a death grip on hope that she wouldn't let go - not for anything.

"Time Lords are telepathic, Rose," he finally replied, his tone clipped and factual as he continued to stare down hard at the console. "Highly telepathic, in fact. If there were anyone else, I'd know without a doubt."

There was a moment where Rose just stared at him in silence, but he wasn't brave enough to look up and examine her expression. Finally, she sighed heavily and crossed her arms tightly across her chest, shifting her weight into a no-nonsense stance, rather than the meek and sympathetic posture that she had come in with.

"Any other telepaths you want to warn me about, Doctor?" she asked tersely. "First the TARDIS, now you, too? Seriously, am I the only one around here who can't read minds?"

The Doctor couldn't suppress a smile as he snuck a glance in her direction from where he kept his head ducked down over his ship's console. "That little ape you've decided to bring along couldn't be more psi-null if he tried," he commented with an easy shrug.

"Adam's not an _ape_, Doctor. He's a _human_, just like me," she protested with an irritated roll of her eyes. "Do you really think that we're all so ridiculous just because we can't read minds?"

"Maybe _him_, yes," the Doctor conceded, nodding down the corridor in the direction that Rose had come from with a barely-concealed sneer. "But not you," he continued, finally meeting her gaze head-on.

Rose narrowed her eyes as she took another moment to gauge his expression. He wondered what it was that she saw in his eyes. Could she somehow see his thoughts without having to read them telepathically?

"So ... how does that work, exactly?" she asked suspiciously, cocking her head to the side as she continued to watch him. "Can you _really _read my mind?"

"I could, if I wanted to," the Doctor admitted truthfully, not even daring to blink as he continued to watch her. "But it would be an incredibly rude thing to do, don't you think?"

"So you've ... never even tried?" she pressed, narrowing her eyes dangerously.

The Doctor sighed wearily and rolled his eyes dramatically. "This is why I don't bring these things up," he groaned. "You humans are always so worried about you precious little thoughts. Most of them aren't even as interesting as you think they are, you know! But _no_, I don't just go around intruding on other people's privacy. Most telepathic races don't, as a rule. It's considered a very grievous invasion, if you must know. Plus, it doesn't exactly work like that ..."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked slowly.

"Well, I can't just _read minds_," he continued with another weary sigh. "It's more like ... touch telepathy."

"So ... you have to be touching someone in order for it to work?" Rose asked, her curiosity seeming to win out over her suspicion for the time being.

"Not always," the Doctor murmured, shrugging his shoulders disinterestedly. "But skin-to-skin contact definitely makes it easier, especially if it's for a specific purpose. There are mental shields that can close the ability off, though, so that I don't get latent thoughts from people every time I accidentally bump into someone."

He felt that he might have been rambling just a bit, but the Doctor needed Rose to understand that her thoughts were safe with him. Not to mention the fact that he still couldn't shake his lingering guilt over the fact that he had been openly absorbing her emotions ever since he had first come into contact with her.

"I've been a bit out of practice lately, though ..." he finally admitted, hoping that she would take this as confession enough for his mistakes.

He watched her hesitantly and was relieved to see her dark eyes softening with a look of sympathy once more. "How long has it been?" she asked quietly. "I mean, when was the last time that you were in contact with someone like that?"

"On purpose? At least a couple of centuries," he replied in a nonchalant tone, both hoping and dreading that she would pick up on his cryptic half-answer.

But his Rose (and when did he start thinking of her in such a possessive way?) was nothing if not clever, and she cocked her head at him once more and gently prodded, "And on accident?"

"It's happened a few times recently ..." he mumbled, distractedly fiddling with the controls on the console once more and refusing to meet her eyes.

"_How _recent?" she insisted through suddenly clenched teeth.

The Doctor tightened his jaw and shot her a meaningful look from under his drawn brows, then watched as her entire countenance immediately tensed up.

"I thought you said that you hadn't read my thoughts?" she demanded angrily. "What happened to it being a 'great invasion of privacy'?"

"I _didn't_," the Doctor insisted in frustration. "But there were a few times, when we ... during our adventures where I picked up a few ... _emotions _from you."

"Like what?" she asked, eyeing him with her narrowed, suspicious expression once more. "What did you see?"

"I didn't _see _anything," the Doctor clarified, rolling his eyes again to let her know how ridiculous he thought all of this was. "I just sometimes feel simple things like excitement or fear or things like that."

"Why do I get the feeling that you're still trying to hide something from me?" Rose insisted, crossing her arms even more tightly across her chest as she continued to analyze him. There was something else in her eyes now, too - was it fear? No, that certainly wouldn't do. The Doctor had to do something about that.

"It's just ... complicated," he attempted awkwardly to explain. "I told you, it's not reading thoughts. It's just picking up on whatever it is that you're feeling at the time, really. The first time it happened, it ... took me by surprise. You're much ... _louder _than most other humans."

"I'm _what_?" Rose gasped indignantly.

"You just ... _feel _more," he amended lamely. "I wasn't prepared for it. And, like I said, my mental defenses were a bit out of practice. But it's all settled now. I've got the mental shields in place again and you can trust me when I say that I haven't been looking in on any of your heart's deepest desires."

He smiled jokingly at her, hoping to lighten the mood, but to his surprise, he was met with her same guarded, unsure expression. And was she blushing slightly? Really, humans were so _fidgety _when it came to telepathy.

However, after a moment of thought, Rose finally gritted her teeth and gave a terse nod of understanding and acceptance.

"Promise you won't go snooping?" she asked, tilting her head in suspicion but letting the edges of her lips turn up ever-so-slightly in a teasing smirk.

"Cross my hearts," the Doctor replied brightly, miming the action for her over both sides of his chest.

"Good."

She spoke so confidently - if the Doctor didn't know her better, he would have thought that that was that and the conversation was finished. But there was still a strange, guarded look hidden away behind her eyes that he couldn't quite ignore and he suspected that things between them were beginning to shift. He just hoped beyond all hope that it would be for the better, and not, as his suspicions told him, for the worse.


	6. The Long Game

"Morinin'!" Rose called cheerily as she bounced out of the hallway and into the console room after they had spent a good eight hours wandering aimlessly through the time vortex.

The Doctor watched her warily out of the corner of his eye and slowly made note of her appearance. They hadn't been traveling together for very long, but this was by far the earliest he had ever seen her up, and _definitely _the brightest she had ever looked after just waking up.

"You're up early," he commented mildly.

"So, come on, then - where are we off to?" she asked eagerly, decidedly ignoring his unspoken question.

"I don't know. First trip out with your little boyfriend - where would you like to go?" the Doctor replied, keeping as much bitterness out of his tone as possible. He had been on his own for too long - traveling with an entourage again hadn't exactly been a part of his plan. But Rose was different - _special_, even - and his inability to deny her had quickly created consequences.

"I was thinking perhaps you could give him a spaceship or something," she replied with an easy shrug, blinking up at him with those wide brown eyes and assuring that the Doctor wouldn't be able to say no to her. "He wanted to see the stars, after all. Let's give him a view, eh?"

"Suits me," the Doctor grumbled, circling the console and dutifully punching in coordinates for the distant future. He figured that 200,000 years should be enough to make the little human's head spin.

"And I was hoping ... well, I was just wondering if maybe _I _could do this one ..." she muttered, scuffing her foot shyly against the floor grating.

"What do you mean?" he asked, forcing a mildly unaffected tone to cover up the way that his hearts had inexplicably begun to race.

"I mean that ... Could you maybe let me introduce the place? You know, give him an overview and everything. That same song and dance that you do every time we land somewhere new," Rose suggested, clasping her hands behind her back and swaying nervously from side to side.

"It's not a 'song and dance'," the Doctor whined defensively. When Rose gave him no response other than a teasing, tongue-touched smile in response, he rolled his eyes and immediately gave in to her demands. "_Fine_," he sighed, as though it were some great pain to do so. "I'll take you out first and give you the date, setting, and plan of action. Easy enough. Just know that you're in charge of him. If he goes wandering off and causes trouble, it'll be on your head!"

"Oi!" A sudden, outraged cry came from the corridor behind Rose, making them both turn around in surprise to lay eyes on their new guest _(third_ _wheel, _the Doctor mused silently). "I'm not some kid you need to look out for," Adam mumbled, eyeing the Doctor petulantly.

"No? You sure?" the Doctor asked condescendingly.

"Alright, let's get it over with, then," Rose interrupted, skipping around the console to nudge the Doctor playfully with her elbow. "Show him how _impressive_ you are, then, Doctor."

And those words paired with her bright eyes and teasing smile were really, _really _not fair. The Doctor gritted his teeth together to keep his answering, traitorous smile from breaking loose and flipped the dematerialization lever without another word.

The TARDIS landed with a jolt that was nothing compared to some of the rough landings that he had tumbled into during his many lifetimes, but it still managed to knock Adam off of his feet, which finally teased forth the smile that the Doctor had been fighting back.

"Alright, then! Off we go!" he called cheerfully, striding easily towards the doors and not even bothering to turn around to check on Adam or offer him a hand.

"And Doctor and I are just going to ... go outside and check the atmosphere real quick," Rose explained lamely. The Doctor was pleased to see that she was backing towards him, flashing Adam a smile but not offering to help him back to his feet. "We'll be right back. Just ... stay here for a minute. We'll let you know when it's safe to come out."

When she finally turned to meet his gaze once more, the Doctor didn't even bother trying to hide his immense pleasure - and, if he were being _completely _honest, a little bit of pride - with his fantastic Rose.

He didn't even recognize the mental possessiveness that he had let slide through his thoughts until he stretched his hand towards her on instinct and the air around them suddenly seemed to freeze in place. Rose's excited smile immediately fell into contemplative silence as she stared hard at his outstretched hand and didn't automatically reach out to meet him. The Doctor was struck all at once by how _wrong _it felt to reach for Rose Tyler and not have her instantly, without question or comment, meet him half-way.

His own smile melted into a frustrated scowl as their conversation from the night before suddenly came rushing back to him. Did she really have so little trust in him? Was she ... _afraid _of him, now?

He was just about to let his arm fall dejectedly back to his side again when Rose suddenly darted forward and grabbed his hand with both of her own. The skin-to-skin contact instantly made the Doctor's mind buzz warmly, but he quickly strengthened his mental shields just in case. It wouldn't do to intrude on her thoughts again, especially after she had complained so vehemently about her personal privacy the night before.

Besides, her eyes held all the answer that he needed, anyway. They were filled with apology, trust, and that same, eager excitement that she had been radiating ever since she had first stepped into the TARDIS and let him cart her off across the galaxy.

"Alright, then?" she asked, and the Doctor could hear all of the underlying questions and answers that lurked just behind those two, simple words. He only prayed that his smile was response enough, because the Doctor couldn't have put all of his thoughts and emotions into words at that moment, even if he wanted to.

"Adam, we'll be back in a mo!" Rose called over her shoulder. And then they were stepping out onto Satellite Five ...

And what an odd, interesting, terribly _wrong _place it was. If the entire human race hadn't been in immediate danger, the Doctor might have even said that he was having _fun_. Because, as much as he had feared Adam causing some sort of rift in the group dynamic, the human in question seemed determined to go it alone on the large, futuristic satellite, and Rose, for her part, seemed content to stay by the Doctor's side as she always did.

"Looks like it's just you and me," the Doctor commented, doing his best to look teasing rather than serious as they entered the lift together - just him and Rose Tyler, two small beings paired up against the rest of the universe.

"Yeah," Rose agreed easily, not even bothering to hide the way that her eyes sparkled excitedly at the promise of facing immediate danger with him (again). It struck the Doctor - not for the first time - how very, _very _luck he had been when he had run into her in that basement in Henrick's. He could hardly have asked for a more perfect companion.

"Good," he continued decisively, not even daring to blink as he waited for her confirmation - needing to know that he wasn't alone in his thoughts.

She only made him wait for a few seconds before she smiled and agreed warmly, "Yep."

He took her hand without asking this time, and he was rewarded when she immediately squeezed his fingers reassuringly.

The lift was quiet as they slowly rose to floor 500, so there was nothing to distract the Doctor from the strange shift that suddenly moved through the atmosphere between them. He was still tempted (_oh so very tempted_) to reach out and touch Rose telepathically as well as physically, but for the first time since he had met her (actually, it was the first time in a very, _very_ long time), the Doctor felt something even deeper than that.

Some hidden, primal part of him that he had quite forgotten about over the last few centuries reached out entirely (okay, maybe not _entirely_) without his permission and attempted to brush against Rose's mind. The Doctor tried telling himself that it was just because he had been alone for so long with nothing and no one to occupy his thoughts, but he had a sneaking suspicion that this was just another clever lie to make himself feel better.

Because, before he was quite aware of what was going on, his mind was reaching out in an attempt to connect with hers. And it wasn't a simple, curious look into her emotions, either. No, this was terrifyingly _deliberate_. It was the type of easy, thoughtless communication that he hadn't had in lifetimes, and the fact that his mind was reaching out and doing it seemingly without his knowing consent was _terrifying _to say the least.

Thankfully, Rose seemed entirely unaware of the moment that passed between them, even though the Doctor was sure that he was holding his breath and had gone quite tense next to her. Perhaps she just thought that he was gearing up to face whatever it was that awaited them on floor 500.

Still, he couldn't quite seem to force himself to let go of her or to pull back, as he knew that he should.

The Doctor was almost grateful for the manacles that ended up trapping them in the control room of Satellite Five with the mighty Jagrafess. At least with them wrapped tightly around his wrists, he wouldn't have to fight his own urges to reach out and try it again.


	7. Father's Day (Part One)

A/N: A shorter chapter, but there will be a part two coming with more missing scenes. ;)

* * *

The Doctor didn't know what it was about Rose Tyler and second chances, but it seemed to be a definite theme with her. He knew that he shouldn't be doing this, but what choice did he really have? Denying Rose was a useless endeavor, and how could he begrudge her the chance to meet a father who she had never known?

Still, he knew that this adventure wouldn't be an easy one, and he steadfastly vowed to stay with her and be the hand that she needed to hold until the very end. He even gave into temptation and lowered his mental shields - just the tiniest bit - so that he could be with her in this moment in every way possible. After all, he had seen entire civilizations - entire planets - fall to their inevitable deaths. The Doctor knew how such a thing could weigh on a person, and he wanted to monitor Rose and know for certain whether she was okay or not.

That's why, when she ducked behind his shoulder and then peered over him at her father's broken body, he knew that things weren't going to work out the way that she had first imagined. She was rooted to the spot, completely overcome by her her emotions. The Doctor had to fight hard against them himself in order to stay in his right mind.

"Go to him, quick," he encouraged her gently, feeling her terror and fear clawing at the inside of his throat.

But she didn't - she _couldn't_.

And then there she was - asking for yet another second chance. And here he was - going right along with it as though it weren't breaking every law of time and space that he had followed for the entirety of his long, long life. The TARDIS didn't much fancy the idea, either - she tossed and rocked and put up quite a bit of fuss before finally setting them back down again in 1987 at a safe distance from their past selves. It made the Doctor feel just a little bit more sane to know that he wasn't the only one who couldn't say no to Rose Tyler.

He hovered anxiously around her the entire time, watching his own back with a sick sense of apprehension rolling in his stomach. He tried to warn her - really, he did - but she was already running off, pushing Pete Tyler out of the way of the oncoming car and rolling across the pavement with him.

The Doctor glowered at her from across the street as everything suddenly became so, so clear. He really had underestimated her - right from the very beginning. She was patient and clever and had such a large, magnificent heart, but none of that was for him. No, it had never been for him. She hadn't come along to help him explore other planets or to keep him company or even to figure out who he really was. It seemed that she had simply come along with him with the sole intent of saving her father's life - consequences be damned.

And the Doctor was so frustrated - so deeply _hurt_ \- that he took his TARDIS key and left her. In fact, he made such a good show of it that he even (almost) half-believed that he could really do it. He had never before been so eager to turn his back and leave a companion behind. With mental shields firmly back in place and his bitterness burning deep inside of him, the Doctor turned away and forced himself not to look back.

But he knew somewhere deep down beneath all of the pain and torment that there was no way that he could ever simply leave her there - even if she really was finally through with him and ready to live out her happily-ever-after with her family in 1987. Because no matter how much the Doctor and his brilliant time ship wanted to give Rose everything that she could ever desire and more, the laws of time were still in place, and they refused to be broken because of one human girl's will (no matter how significant that will may be).

So they were stuck - with no tools, no way out, and no plan. It wasn't like it had never happened to him before, but having to watch Rose and her family grow close and knowing that this perfect world that she had created for herself could never last just made it that much _harder_.

As tragedy threatened them on every side, the Doctor's apologies came first - awkward, but sincere - followed quickly by hers - heartbroken and so very, very genuine that his last lingering doubts were finally laid to rest. She explained that she hadn't done this on purpose, and that she didn't mean to leave him - not now, (maybe? Hopefully?) not ever. He hugged her tightly, biting his own tongue to keep the need to open his mind to her in check. The Doctor told himself that her words and actions were enough (they just _had _to be).

The second time (or was it technically the third?) that Peter Allan Tyler fell to the pavement that day, he stayed there. This time, Rose ran to him just like she had always intended, and the Doctor waited patiently for her to be ready to say her final goodbyes, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would return to him and that he would be there for her no matter what.


	8. Father's Day (Part Two)

The Doctor and Rose walked back to the TARDIS hand-in-hand, Rose's steps steady and resolute as she crossed the threshold into his ship and didn't once look back.

"Alright, then?" the Doctor asked, already knowing full well that things were _not_, in fact, alright.

"Yeah," Rose lied, going along easily with the silly pretense that the two of them kept up. The Doctor wondered why they even bothered. And who had been the one to start this game of dancing around the real issues in the first place? He continued the game by pretending not to know that it was entirely his idea and absolutely his fault.

"Actually," she muttered, seeming to second-guess herself. "No. Wait."

And, because he was a slave to Rose's will at every turn, the Doctor obeyed. They were still holding hands, standing just inside the doorway of the TARDIS, when she turned to face him more fully, her eyes cast downward as she brought her second hand up to fully cover his.

"I'm sorry, I ..."

But the rest of her words were drowned out as the dam in the Doctor's mind suddenly crumbled and Rose pushed her way past every single one of his mental defenses, overwhelming him completely with her emotions.

There was pain and fear and sorrow and ... _longing_? That one was new. But he didn't have the mental capacity to unpack it at the moment - not when Rose was projecting her emotions so strongly directly into his mind.

He knew that she had continued talking for a few moments, but when the Doctor's legs failed him under her mental onslaught and he awkwardly stumbled back against the closed doors of the TARDIS, her words (and, thankfully, her thoughts) finally halted and she gazed at him with curious concern.

"Doctor? What's wrong? What is it?" she asked hesitantly.

"Blimey, Rose, don't _do _that," the Doctor groaned, raising his free hand to the side of his head as though that would somehow shield him from the emotions that were still ebbing over him in waves like the aftermath of a storm. It took everything in him not to shiver uncontrollably as the little mental pulses washed through him. Still, he didn't even once try to remove her hand from his.

"What do you mean? What's happened?" she continued, stepping forward so that he was forced to meet her gaze. Her dark brows were drawn over her tawny-colored eyes as she stared searchingly up at him. Rose was really far too close for comfort, but the Doctor was still swaying unevenly between his feet, completely unable to put any distance between them even if he had wanted to.

He forced his eyes to close and took one long, deep breath in an attempt to focus. With Rose's thoughts turning towards concern rather than projection and with his own mind slowly coming back to itself, the Doctor was able to quickly seal the gaping hole that Rose had unknowingly blown straight through his mental defenses.

"You can't just do that with no warning," he explained slowly, his eyes still closed tight as he forced himself to focus. "I'm sorry, but you were projecting your feelings so loudly. It was like you were _shouting _at me."

"Shouting?" Rose repeated, still watching him with some concern and confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"You were projecting," the Doctor elaborated, finally opening his eyes and stepping out of the doorway and further into the console room, effectively breaking himself free from her grip. His hand felt strangely _cold _without both of hers encircling it, though the Doctor didn't dare look over his shoulder to gauge her expression as he busily flipped levers and switches in an attempt to distract himself from that fact.

"You mean my ..." He caught Rose gesturing vaguely towards the side of her head in his peripheral vision and he gave one terse nod in response.

"Oh," she finally stated, still hovering in the doorway and not attempting to come any further into the TARDIS. "Sorry," she amended awkwardly.

The Doctor nodded once more, still stubbornly refusing to raise his gaze from the familiar controls beneath his fingers.

"Does that ... happen a lot?" Rose asked curiously, finally stepping forward and making her way half-way up the grated ramp before she paused again to watch him.

"No," he answered, giving her a short, pointed look before going back to his many distractions. "Most humans have to try very, _very _hard to project like that. I can't remember the last time ..."

His words trailed of into silence, but Rose didn't press him for more. Knowing her, she already knew that it was that he was trying to say without him actually having to say it.

The fact was that it was only on very few, very _rare _occasions that any human had been able to project like that, though it had been a common form of communication between Time Lords back when Gallifrey was still around. All in all, the Doctor was out of practice to say the least.

"And what ... what did you see?" Rose asked slowly.

The Doctor finally steeled himself and forced his gaze to meet hers where she still stood, hesitating in the middle of the ramp. She was standing with her weight all on one foot, her free leg twisting shyly from side to side as she looked up at him through lowered lashes. Did she have any idea what such a look _did _to people?

"I saw ... Well, I _felt _what you were feeling," the Doctor replied awkwardly. "Or, at least, what you _wanted _me to feel."

"And that was ...?" Rose pressed leadingly.

"Pain, exhaustion, and fear seemed to be the most prominent," the Doctor finally replied, keeping his tone as light and offhanded as possible. "All pretty standard, considering what we just went through. But the _big _question, Rose Tyler, is _why _were you projecting in the first place?"

"I wanted ... I mean, I didn't mean to," Rose replied haltingly, lowering her gaze to her foot as it continued to twist back and forth in front of her. "But I wanted to explain. I wanted you to ... understand."

"Understand what?" the Doctor asked, confused.

"That I"m sorry," she replied insistently. "Truly, properly sorry. I didn't mean tot make you worry. And ... I didn't want you thinking that I was trying to _use _you for anything. And ... I'm glad that you came back." She paused to glance up at him again, her smile stealing across her features seemingly outside of her control. "I'm really, _really _glad that you came back."

"Not to worry, Rose Tyler," the Doctor muttered, throwing her an easy smile and an unaffected shrug. "I'll always come back for you."

"So ... you're not taking me back, then?" she asked hesitantly.

"Back where?" the Doctor replied, tossing her a confused look as he began shifting around the console once more, continuing to fiddle with nonsense buttons as he went.

"Back home," Rose clarified, her shoulders sagging with visible relief as she finally finished ascending the ramp and joined him at the console. "I was afraid that ... Well, maybe you would try and take me back to my mum and leave me there."

"And what would I do that for?" the Doctor asked, flashing her another disbelieving, confused look. Did she think that he was giving up on her? Had he not been as clear as he needed to be, back when he had apologized in the church?

Because the absolute _last _thing that the Doctor wanted to do in that moment was abandon Rose Tyler back on Earth with her mother and try to go it alone without her. In fact, he wasn't sure if he would ever be able to go it alone ever again. He honestly couldn't really recall what it had been like before Rose came into his life. But did any of that even really matter? If he had things his way, the Doctor would never be without her again, so worrying about such things was a pointless exercise.

"So ... how does projecting _work_, anyway?" Rose asked after a long moment, effectively breaking the Doctor out of his thoughts. "You looked like you were going to pass out there, for a moment. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"It only hurt me as much as it hurt you," the Doctor answered her honestly, watching her with a level, assessing look.

"Sorry ..." she murmured again. "Is there a way to ... control it? I mean, I don't want to go around projecting my thoughts to every telepathic race that we run into, you know?"

"Of course you can," the Doctor told her easily. "It's simply a matter of concealing your thoughts."

"And ... how do I do that?" Rose asked leadingly.

"Well, how did you project your thoughts in the first place?" the Doctor asked rhetorically. "You think very hard about something and you focus on getting it through to the other person. Concealing thoughts is just a matter of doing the opposite. It's not so very hard."

"Right ..." she muttered slowly, staring hard at the time rotor as though the TARDIS had some better answer for her. "So ... it's like the psychic paper, then, yeah? Just can't let your mind wander when you're touching someone."

"Exactly!" the Doctor exclaimed eagerly. "Well, actually, no. Not really like that at all. But if that's how you want to think of it, then that's fine."

Rose rolled her eyes at him with a long-suffering sigh before deciding to drop the subject altogether. "So, where are we off to next, then?" she asked curiously.

"The TARDIS is headed to the vortex," the Doctor replied simply, flipping the dematerialization lever and then moving around her to the other side of the controls, letting his fingers linger indulgently across her back as he passed her. "But _you_, Rose Tyler, are going to bed."

She went off with surprisingly little argument, betraying her true exhaustion from the long day that they'd had. Still, she lingered in the hallway, giving him a long look that the Doctor couldn't quite decipher, but he figured that it might have something to do with that unidentified _longing _that she had tried projecting to him earlier.

But the question was - what did it _mean_? Longing to stay? Longing to leave? Longing for something familiar when everything else in her world was turned upside down? Longing to express herself in a way beyond what simple words could offer them? Or, perhaps, just maybe, was it a longing for something ... _more_?


	9. The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances (1)

The Doctor and Rose certainly got _more _from wartime London. In fact, they gained a whole new crewmate in Jack Harkness (the Doctor absolutely _refused _to call him "_captain_", no matter what Jack and Rose had to say on the matter).

And suddenly, attempting to put any sort of distance between himself and Rose was no longer a problem because the Doctor's own foolish, childish _jealousy _made the whole issue a moot point. Now, instead of trying to push her away, he was suddenly fighting just to keep up with her and Jack. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt like such a third wheel, despite the fact that he had traveled with actual couples on multiple occasions.

So when Rose finally offered her hand to him and asked him to "show her his moves", the Doctor couldn't exactly say _no_. He was pulled to her side like a moon coming into alignment with its planet. He couldn't have fought the laws of gravity in that moment even if he had tried.

Still, this was a new step for both of them in their coy little game of avoiding the glaringly obvious, and the Doctor found that he wasn't quite sure of what the next move was meant to be. And (though he would never admit it - _especially _not to Rose) it had been quite a while since he had last danced - both in the physical sense, and in the sly, cheeky way that she was currently insinuating.

His nervousness made him play his cards close to his chest, and when he first took her hands in his it was for examination, and not to pull her into his arms and send her twirling about the room.

"Barrage balloon ...?" he asked pointedly.

"What ...?" she murmured, caught off guard.

"You were hanging from a barrage balloon," he reminded her simply.

He pretended that his examination of her hands was detached and medical in nature, but the wild beating of his hearts told a different story. After all the trouble that they'd had lately with telepathy, he half-expected Rose to snatch her hands out of his grasp and rescind her offer to dance, but instead she just continued to needle him - teasing him relentlessly until he had no choice but to take her hand in his again and draw her close.

The Doctor was distantly aware of how ridiculous he probably looked and was suddenly extremely grateful that they were alone in this small, abandoned hospital room. Rose didn't seem to be too bothered by it, though - and she shifted her weight closer as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Her charming smile and playful words were like a spell and before he knew it, the Doctor's mental shields were lowering just the tiniest fraction and her slight projection was just powerful enough to allow him a glimpse into her mind. It was only for a moment - the barest slip of a second - but in that moment, he was able to understand without the faintest doubt that her flirtatious, joking words had all just been set in place in an effort to cover up the truth.

Because his fantastic, beautiful (yes, he had to admit it openly to himself, now - no qualifiers needed), infuriating companion was most certainly _not _talking about dancing in the most innocent form of the verb. In fact, she never had been. It was all just another game of words - just like the ones that they had been using ever since he first carted her off in the TARDIS - which allowed them to hint at the things that they didn't dare say.

But before he had the chance to reason out that extremely sensitive and dangerous bit of information, they were interrupted once more by a certain obnoxious rogue time agent and it was all back to business as usual.

Still, he couldn't easily shake the small, shining moment when he had sensed Rose's true intentions and all of the promise and hope that they carried.

* * *

The Doctor saved Jack because it was the right thing to do, but he only let him onboard the TARDIS because Rose had asked. He would have been much happier to have the entirety of the ship to themselves that night. There was certainly no shortage of things to discuss, after all.

But those plans had to be put on hold as they spent the rest of the evening instead twirling about the console room to 1940s Earth swing music. He did his best to be fair and allow Rose to have her equal share of dances between him and Jack, but after all of their discussion about _dancing _added to the fact that he had always been a bit ridiculously possessive made it difficult.

He didn't do any more peeking into her personal thoughts that night, though there was plenty of opportunity considering the fact that they suddenly seemed quite happy to invade one another's personal space - a new (and strange) development to their relationship. But the Doctor kept his thoughts to himself and let Rose keep hers, content to simply have her hand in his and an excuse to keep her close.

During one particular slow song he was focused so intently on the feel of Rose's head on his shoulder and the smell of her shampoo in his nose that the Doctor nearly jumped out of his skin when he suddenly felt something brush up against the back of his mind. His steps immediately faltered and he squeezed Rose's hand reflexively as he stiffened in defense of the person currently attempting to breach his mental shields.

"Doctor?" she asked in concern, stepping back to look up at him in confusion.

He realized as soon as he looked down into her captivating brown eyes that it hadn't been just _anyone _tip-toeing around the edges of his thoughts - it had been _her_.

"Rose?" he asked, watching her with an expression torn between awe and fear. She really, _really _shouldn't have been able to do this. Did she even realize what it was that she was doing?

He was about to open his mouth to ask, but he was overwhelmed once more by the thoughts that she projected directly into his mind, as easily as though she had been practicing telepathy her entire life.

She was filled to overflowing with happiness, contentment, and some great, big emotion that he was trying very hard not to call _love_.

"Rose, what ...?" the Doctor tried again, blinking very hard and trying not to stumble under the sheer weight of it all in his head.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, I just ... I wanted to let you know how happy I am, and ... I just couldn't put it into words," she explained haltingly. She looked up at him shyly through her dark eyelashes as she added, "Is ... that alright?"

"Y-yeah," he replied, instantly hating the way that his voice caught and stuttered but not being able to stop it.

Rose flashed him a small, pleased smile before she ducked her head back down to his shoulder. They weren't moving anymore, and the sudden numbness in his legs prevented him from attempting to continue their dance.

"I could do with a warning next time, though," the Doctor continued, doing his best to sound lighthearted and teasing despite the wild beating of his hearts. "Not really used to ... _that_."

"Hmm," Rose hummed thoughtfully against his chest. "Are you saying that you're out of practice, then? I seem to remember that was your same excuse about _dancing_."

And oh, it should _really _be illegal for her to tease him like that when his defenses were already so shaken. Did she know how thoroughly she was testing his resolve? The Doctor had an idea that she might, but that certainly didn't help things.

"Really, though, you should tell me about it sometime," Rose went on casually, as though he weren't frozen in place and completely tongue-tied by her bold flirtation. "It sounds like there are a lot of rules surrounding this telepathy stuff. I don't want to accidentally breach some sort of code of conduct or something just because I don't know exactly how it works."

That, finally, broke the tension in his chest and he let out a small huff of laughter as he tightened his arm around her back and began swaying gently to the music once more.

"Oh, Rose," he sighed wistfully. "Trust me, this is breaking _every _rule already."

"Should I ... not do that, then?" Rose asked, sounding suddenly uncertain.

The Doctor squeezed her hand reassuringly and buried his pleased smile in her soft blonde hair.

"No," he whispered against her scalp, knowing that he was digging his own grave and doing it anyway. "I like feeling your presence. Makes everything seem less ... empty."

And, before he could talk himself out of it, the Doctor placed a hard, lingering kiss to her forehead and then spun her out and away from his arms. He welcomed the cold, lonely feeling that filled the space near his hearts that Rose had previously occupied. It felt like a bracing rush of cool water being thrown over the flames, dousing them before they could grow too large and destroy everything in their wake.

He tried not to look her in the eye, but the Doctor caught her surprised, confused expression nonetheless as she stood there, staring after him.

"Go on, let Jack have another go," he told her, keeping his tone as light and cheerful as possible as he motioned towards the rogue time agent who was leaning against the far wall and smiling at him with a look that he _really _didn't appreciate right at this moment. "Can't have you going and picking favorites, now."

"Yeah, alright," Rose agreed easily, turning to motion Jack forward as the slow song ended and another took its place. Her back was to him now, so the Doctor couldn't tell if the note of regret in her voice was real or just part of his imagination.

"I don't know, I think the preferences are pretty clear," Jack commented wryly as he stepped up and swept Rose easily into his arms. "But who am I to say no to a dance with a pretty girl?"


	10. The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances (2)

"So ... there are social rules _and _legal rules," Rose muttered thoughtfully, her foot tapping some nonsense rhythm into the air as she stared up at the TARDIS ceiling. "So it's not so different from normal communication, really."

"Yes, Rose, that's what I've been trying to tell you," the Doctor sighed exasperatedly, rolling his eyes dramatically even though he knew that she wouldn't be able to see it from his current position under the floor grating.

They had been in the console room for the past few hours talking about everything and nothing as he worked on basic TARDIS maintenance and Rose kept him company. They were parked in an alley somewhere in 33rd century Canada where they had just finished helping the locals deal with an outbreak of a deadly alien virus hiding in the soil. They were waiting on Jack, who had begged for a few hours of shore leave to finish "cleaning up", as he put it, but he wasn't fooling anyone with the eyes he was making at one of the pretty young police women who had helped them save the community.

So it was just the two of them again (_as it should be, _the Doctor thought privately to himself) - Rose laying out on the battered jump seat with her legs crossed in the air above her and the Doctor below the floor grating buried under three different layers of TARDIS pipes and wiring.

After about an hour of this, she had started demanding that he make good on his promise to tell her more about telepathy and he had spent the time since giving her the basics that every Gallifreyan child knew.

"It's so different, though," Rose went on eagerly. "Like, how do you keep everyone separated in your head? Do they sound different, like with normal speech, or is it a thing that you _feel_? And how do you do things like plan surprise birthdays and parties and stuff? There wouldn't be any way to keep a secret!"

"Believe me, there are plenty of secrets on Gallifrey," the Doctor murmured as he scowled at the bit of wiring in his hand. "Not many surprise birthday parties, though," he added blithely. "Shame, that."

"And what if ... Well, what if you _fancied _someone?" Rose asked, her tone taking on that bright, gossipy quality that he knew she learned from her mother. "Ooh, bet that's rough. How would you hide it?"

"There are easy ways to block things," the Doctor explained, making his tone as factual as possible as he silently thanked the floor grating for concealing his suddenly-heated cheeks. "It's something we're taught from a young age, so it's not hard. Goes hand-in-hand with telepathy, really. Can't just be a walking, talking open book."

"So you're saying that being cagey is inherent to all Time Lords?" Rose asked teasingly.

"What are you implying?" the Doctor asked in mock offense, secretly wondering how this one human girl had managed to peg his people so accurately when she'd never even _met _them.

"I'm just saying that all that talk about '_dancing_' the other night wasn't exactly the most straightforward way to come out with your feelings," Rose replied, keeping up her teasing tone.

"But ... we danced for hours!" the Doctor protested childishly. "What more could you want?"

"Yeah, danced around the subject," Rose drawled quietly to herself.

The Doctor silently gritted his teeth together as he struggled to find something else to say. Was she really expecting him to just come right out and say it? To admit that he wanted her - _needed _her - in a way that he hadn't wanted anybody in more years than he could count?

She had teased him about the world imploding if the Doctor danced, but he was beginning to wonder if that was entirely untrue.

What good would it do either of them, anyway? It would certainly cause more problems than solutions. No, he decided, Rose Tyler had absolutely _no idea _how dangerous this fire was that she was playing with, and he was determined to keep her from getting burned.

"Hand me those extra cables and that bionic wrench," he commanded, desperately needing a change in subject. Rose could accuse him of being cagey all she liked, as long as it kept her from the one truth that he could never tell her.

Rose sighed heavily as she dropped her feet to the grating and strode over to the pile of gadgets and circuitry that were piled near the opening above him. She made her best guess at what he needed (he didn't bother mentioning that she had grabbed the pliers instead of the wrench) and passed them to him.

He didn't look up from the wiring wrapped around him as he raised his hand to meet hers, so he was entirely unprepared for when their fingers connected and something like an electrical shock jolted through him. She was projecting again, and he knew that it had to be on purpose, because there was deliberate intent with the thought that she pushed so forcefully into his mind.

_I want you._

But it wasn't in the primal, basic sense that someone like Jack Harkness might have used. It was so, _so _much greater than that. It was the desire for _more _ \- a promise of _forever_. It was a want to be close and to never let go. It was a want for everything that he had to give and to give everything that she had in return. It was a want for his good days, his bad days, and everything else in between - a want for his past, present, and future. It was a nameless, hope-filled desire that swelled his hearts to the point of bursting.

The Doctor had felt similar things before in his many lifetimes, but not in the fiery, overpowering _human _way that Rose did - and _never _had he felt it coming from someone else and directed at _him_.

The Doctor was frozen in place again, blinking up at her in shock as she slowly withdrew her hand from his, keeping her dark eyes trained on him the entire time. It took everything in him to keep his grip on the wiring and pliers as the rest of the world seemed to fade away and all that was left was just _Rose_.

"You ... you should _really _warn me before you do that," he finally muttered, his voice ragged and rough around the edges.

"Why? So you can block me out?" Rose countered fiercely. Her tone was hard and insistent, but the Doctor could see the vulnerable question in her eyes - she was waiting for his response.

He did finally drop the wiring and pliers, then - he let them clatter down into the depths of the TARDIS without a care as to where they might scatter off to. In one quick motion, the Doctor lifted himself out from under the console to sit on the edge of the opening beside her, his eyes boring into hers the entire time.

"Doctor ...?" she asked slowly.

But he couldn't answer - there were no words for all that he needed to tell her. He needed to show her - she needed to _know _\- that what she was asking for was _impossible._

The Doctor raised his hands to her temples and hesitated for only a second before silently cursing himself and forcing his fingers to make contact with her delicate, human skin.

_You have no idea what you're asking for, Rose, _he insisted, his expression screwed into a scowl as he forcefully filled her head with the sounds, sights, images, and feelings from the past 900 years of his life. It was really only the merest glimpse, and he purposefully left out all sensitive and potentially dangerous information, but it was still enough to make Rose startle and she gasped loudly as she instinctively attempted to jolt away from him.

But the Doctor's fingers remained solidly connected to her temples as he let the weight of the last of the Time Lords ghost over her mind. He hung his head in shame and refused to meet her eyes as he let her see for the first time just how deep and dark his mind was.

_This isn't even the half of it, not by far. So please don't ask for more._

The Doctor heard as well as felt Rose's shaky exhale as the first shock of surprise finally left her and she finally began to relax once more. Her thoughts were going a mile a minute - racing to keep up with all of the things that he was attempting to show her. The Doctor realized with a sickening sense of dread that she wasn't pulling away in fear as she was meant to. In fact, she was filled with as much awe and wonder as she always was whenever he showed her a new alien planet or took her to a particularly fascinating point in history.

"I'm not afraid of you, you daft old alien," she sighed, her voice sounding as rough and as weary as he felt.

Then, before he could stop her, Rose leaned forward and pressed her forehead gently to his, pushing the Doctor's own dark thoughts out of the way and replacing them with warm feelings of love and acceptance. It was enough to make him choke on the sudden lump in his throat and his hands moved of their own accord to wrap around the back of her neck and draw her closer.

He knew that he was a fool for letting himself be drawn in by her siren's song - a promise of forever that he knew that she would never realistically be able to keep - but he was old and weak and so very, very tired. The Doctor had been running ever since the Time War, and he was ready now - finally - to stop running and begin to pick up the pieces.

The Doctor didn't know how long they sat there like this (his time senses were completely drowned out by her), and her certainly didn't know what was meant to happen next, but that issue was quickly resolved as a tall figure came swanning in through the TARDIS doors and completely interrupted the tense atmosphere hanging between them.

Rose finally pulled away, blinking hard and refusing to meet his gaze for a moment as she looked over his shoulder to greet Jack with a small, watery smile.

"Oi, took you long enough!" she called jokingly.

"Right," Jack replied slowly, clearly hesitating as he took in the vulnerable scene before him. "Sorry. I could go back and visit the bar again if you two needed more time for ... TARDIS calibrations ..."

The Doctor didn't have it in him to scold Jack for his damned insinuations. In fact, he couldn't do much in that moment other than sit there and stare up at Rose, needing her to meet his eye and tell him what to do next. This was entirely new, unstable ground for him. And just like with all new things, he was equal parts excited and terrified.

Finally, Rose hesitantly met his gaze, blinking nervously at him as though she expected him to jump up and forcefully push her away. When he did nothing but continue to stare, she offered him a small, shy smile that immediately sparked the Doctor back into action once more.

"No chance, Harkness," he called, popping up to his feet and throwing the ex-time agent a cheeky smile over his shoulder. "If you go back to that bar we'll be stuck here for at least another few days waiting on you. Best get going. There's things to do, people to see, worlds to save, civilizations to build ..."

The Doctor only paused in his lighthearted, chattering banter to lean down and offer Rose a hand, which she took without a second's hesitation and possibly the brightest smile that he had seen from her yet.

He really had no choice but to mirror it, and if they looked even half as foolish as he felt, at least Jack Harkness had the (surprising) decency to not say a word about it.


	11. Boom Town

The Doctor, Rose, and Jack settled into a strange rhythm of normalcy in the following weeks (well, as normal as life traveling through time and space could possibly be). The Doctor marveled over the odd sense of complacency that he could feel himself settling into. When was the last time that he had known such peace? It was the type of contentment that he had never thought that he would be able to find (much less deserve) again.

The Doctor and Rose didn't have any more deep discussions about telepathy, dancing, or anything else that left him feeling completely out of his depth, but that wasn't to say that things weren't changed between them. The hand-holding and hugs lasted longer now, and the looks that passed between them always seemed charged with some sort of tangible energy. There was something new and indefinable in her eyes that he had a hard time ignoring, and an even harder time trying not to match with his own expressions.

It was all driving Jack quite insane, but the Doctor very quickly trained himself to ignore the ex-time agent's many suggestive, flirtatious remarks. Whenever Jack was being a particular pain, the Doctor would land on some alien planet and let him loose to wander by himself, giving the Doctor time alone with Rose. It was then that their lingering touches and teasing remarks could go on uninterrupted (for better or worse).

The Doctor was nervous when Rose suggested that they pop back to her time to meet up with Mickey, but he decided to go along with the plan anyway, hoping that (just maybe) she would prove him wrong once and for all and leave him behind for a nice, normal, human relationship.

He tried to tell himself that he was more disappointed than pleased when she ended up spending the entire day in Cardiff hanging on his arm instead of her (ex?) boyfriend's. However, there was no denying the sharp sting of hurt when he watched her head off to a hotel with him at the end of the night.

"So, what's going on?" Jack asked, his casual expression so fake that it made the Doctor want to hit him. But his rationality overtook his emotions for once and the Doctor settled for switching off the monitor with a sour look and refusing to give a proper reply instead.

So, throwing all previous plans out the window, the Doctor ended up going out to dinner with Margaret the Slitheen that evening. He told himself it was an attempt to grant a kind last request and not to fulfill the desperate need to keep his hands and mind busy and absolutely _not _thinking about what Rose and her (definitely-not-ex) boyfriend might be getting up to.

And what an eye-opening evening it turned out to be - as Margaret was able to remind him quite clearly of what exactly he was. He wasn't some dark, romantic prince with a tragic past and a princess to rescue. He wasn't even some poor, heartsick hero on a mission to help others and save the universe. He was someone who had to stand up and make the hard decisions when no one else would. He was someone who was dangerous - a killer, even. And he was someone who was certainly not good enough for someone as special and important as Rose Tyler.

That simple fact was really hammered home after things started to go wrong and Rose took no more than two steps back into his TARDIS and immediately became a hostage - her life on the line yet again, and all because he had failed to protect her. The Doctor decided that his dear time ship definitely had more mercy left in her than he did when they all crowded around and gazed down at the regressed egg of Margaret the Slitheen. He wasn't sure if he would have let her off the hook so easily after seeing her long claws poised so carefully against Rose's throat - ready to snap her in half at any moment.

As Rose ran off to find Mickey yet again, the Doctor resigned himself to cleaning up the wreckage left behind in the console room and preparing to get as far away from Earth as soon as possible. He ignored Jack's darting, sympathetic glances and reminded himself that this was what he had wanted - what he had brought her here with the express purpose of coaxing her into staying.

But now the reality of that ill-conceived wish was crashing down around him. What if she told him that she didn't want to go traveling with him anymore? What if she wanted to stay behind in Cardiff with her nice, (boring) human boyfriend? She hadn't even been with him for very long, but already he dreaded the solemn silence that he knew she would leave behind when she eventually left him - just as all the others before her had.

He told himself that it was surprise and surprise alone that made his hearts start pounding when she finally opened the TARDIS doors and returned to him without an added passenger or an excuse to stay behind. But the heartbreak in her eyes was one that he knew well, and he had to offer to help, even if it was the exact opposite of what he really wanted to do.

"He deserves better," she admitted glumly, not meeting his eye.

The Doctor turned back to the console controls so that she wouldn't catch a glimpse of the fire that he could feel burning within him. He knew that when it came to Rose Tyler, there was nothing and no one "_better_". He felt as though he might burst with the need to know what Mickey could have possibly said to her to make her doubt herself so egregiously.

"Off we go, then. Always moving on," the Doctor announced instead.

He set their destination for Raxacoricofallapatorious and told Jack to mind the monitors before he finally allowed himself to step forward and take Rose's hand once more. He led her to the TARDIS infirmary without a word, and she followed without complaint or comment.

He didn't realize that he had lowered his mental shields until he subconsciously reached out to her and was met with a steel wall of silence. Whatever had happened between her and Mickey, he wasn't going to be able to use his cheap parlor tricks to get it out of her. For the first time since he had met her, she was purposefully keeping him out. He didn't expect it to hurt as much as it did, but he brushed off the feeling of rejection and loneliness with a practiced hand.

"How's your neck?" he asked, deciding to focus on the superficial hurt first.

Rose obediently hopped up onto the examination table without need of direction and he immediately flipped on the medical scanners. The two of them had been in enough scrapes during their time together that they were both relatively familiar with the routine of a typical infirmary visit.

"It's fine. You fuss too much, Doctor," she sighed wearily, still not meeting his eyes.

The medical scanner quickly confirmed her analysis and showed that apart from some light bruising, she wasn't injured in any way.

"Just some bruising," he muttered under his breath, reaching for the sonic in his inside pocket and then coming to stand before her at the edge of the examination table. "Nothing the sonic can't fix."

He held the blue-tipped instrument between them and waited patiently for her response, not daring to touch her in this moment without her explicit permission.

She simply raised one of her dark eyebrows at him in a "well-get-on-with-it" look and pulled the warm wool scarf from around her head in one hasty motion. She turned her head to the side without a word, continuing to keep her gaze trained away form his as she exposed her neck to his examination.

"You sure you're alright?" the Doctor asked slowly as he adjusted the sonic's settings and began to trace the edges of the mottled skin on her throat.

"I'm fine," Rose lied, closing her eyes as the sonic began to whir gently against her soft, pale skin.

The Doctor let her keep the lie - he knew from experience how clinging to them could offer a strange sense of peace in times of turmoil. He focused instead on making her feel better in whatever what he could - even if it was as simple as healing her bruises. His fingers were gentle against her as he let the sonic do its work to restore her broken blood vessels and he projected as much peace and acceptance as he could through their thin physical connection.

"Doctor," she said suddenly, her voice little more than a whisper in the small space between them.

"Yes?"

"Would you promise me something?"

The Doctor locked his jaw so that he wouldn't be tempted to open his mouth and impulsively swear to give her anything that she desired. He knew that they were already on dangerous ground once again and he wasn't about to let himself start making false promises - not to her.

When he didn't reply, she opened her eyes slowly and gave him a heavy, sidelong glance out of the corner of her eye.

"Doctor, please," she admonished quietly. "Just promise me that you're not going to leave me."

"Leave you?" he repeated, refusing to let himself make any vows or declarations until he knew all of the small print that she was drafting into this verbal deal.

"Yeah. Don't think I don't know why you really brought us back here today," Rose sighed, twisting her head to bare the opposite side of her neck without the Doctor having to ask her to do so. "I think maybe deep down, you want me to stay. You think I'll be safer that way."

The Doctor bit the inside of his cheek roughly in an attempt to fight back the many responses that he had to such a comment. He forced himself to remain silent, but he couldn't stop the way that his fingers were brushing against the skin of her throat far more thoroughly than they needed to.

"But I don't want to stay," Rose continued, her annoyance clearly growing as the Doctor continued to refuse to respond to her. "I wouldn't be here if I did. I want to be with you."

The confessions were bubbling up within him and the Doctor knew that he had to do something - and _fast_ \- before he accidentally let one of them slip out. So, in a moment of weak desperation, he leaned forward and pressed his lips firmly to her warm skin in an effort to silence the dangerous words that he didn't dare give voice to. She gasped softly as his mouth connected with the side of her neck, just below her jawbone.

The gentle kiss only lasted for a second, but the Doctor remained bent over, breathing heavily against the side of Rose's face and refusing to allow himself a glimpse at her expression.

"Then stay," he finally whispered, closing his eyes tight and refusing to look at the time lines laid out before him that he knew were shifting and falling into alignment because of this one, simple command.

Now it was Rose's turn to be silent as she fumbled for his free hand and laced her fingers together with his. The Doctor was still leaning over her, frozen in time as she brought his hand into her lap and clutched it tightly - like a lifeline, like a promise.

He felt her thumb gently grazing over his and he squeezed her fingers once, tightly, before finally forcing himself away.

"Bruising should be fully healed by tomorrow," the Doctor announced as he turned his back on her and began bustling about the medical room once more, mindlessly straightening things and opening and closing cabinets and drawers. "Let me know if you notice any pain or scarring in the meantime."

It took Rose a moment to respond, but the Doctor finally heard her sigh and mutter, "Alright." He listened as her boots hit the ground when she jumped off of the examination table, but he still didn't dare to turn and look. When he finally did find the courage to face her once more, he turned to see that she was already gone, and he knew that the time for confessions had slipped through his fingers yet again.


	12. Bad Wolf & The Parting of Ways (1)

The second time that the Doctor visited Satellite Five, he woke up disorientated, weak, and alone. And the blonde girl who helped him to his feet was _not _Rose Tyler, which made everything just that much more confusing. But as his mind slowly returned to him and he began to grasp the strange reality of his situation, he found himself thinking that if he had been separated from Rose, Lynda-with-a-y was at least a passable substitute.

She was sweet (really, he hadn't been lying about that), keen, and curious - and she had more fight in her than she originally let on. He liked her almost immediately and the fact that she seemed to like him back - and even trusted him enough to risk her life when he promised to get her out alive - was enough to make his head spin.

Maybe, he thought idly, this daft old face wasn't as useless as he had made himself to believe.

She really was eerily similar to Rose (though with significantly less psychic abilities), and her undeniable interest had him instantly falling into his default mode of flirtatious showing off. It seemed that 900 years in time and space still wasn't enough to teach him to grow up a bit.

But he _liked _the attention, and he secretly cherished the fact that he could still have this easy back-and-forth with someone other than Rose Tyler. It made him feel a little less hopelessly besotted, which in turn helped his mind to think more clearly in an attempt to find and rescue her.

But as soon as those two words lit up - bright, large, and undeniable before him - he knew that they were all in even deeper trouble than he had originally thought. It felt as though "Bad Wolf" was seared into his mind - a warning pushing him to move faster and find Rose before it was too late.

Still, he clung relentlessly to hope - just as he knew that she would - and didn't stop running until he laid eyes on her once more. He had 7.13 seconds where they both ran towards each other and he thought that just maybe he would get the chance to feel her in his arms once more and they would face this "Bad Wolf" together and defeat it once and for all.

But then, in a blinding flash of light, there was nothing left of Rose Tyler but a pile of dust.

And then just like that, everything became oh so very simple. The familiar, cold pit of emptiness and anger enveloped the Doctor like a tidal wave and he realized with a sudden rush of clarity just how far he had come since the Time War. The last time that he had felt like this, he had been certain that there would be no chance of climbing back out of that pit of sorrow and depression - but then he had met a young girl in the basement of a department store in London and she had changed everything.

Suddenly, the truth that he had been running from for far too long finally hit him square in the chest.

He was in love with Rose Tyler.

He was in love with her, and now she was gone forever.

So he fell back on the only thing that he had left that he knew he could depend upon - he became the general who had commanded armies and been the sole survivor to crawl his way out of the burning pit that was Gallifrey. He became the Oncoming Storm - a dangerous, powerful force of nature with a singular, deadly focus.

The Doctor had truly been prepared to tear the entire bloody space station in half in order to uncover who was responsible for all of the deaths on Satellite Five, and he had been prepared to make their own death as drawn out and painful as possible for taking his one final shred of hope from him when Jack insisted that there was something he was missing.

The Doctor felt his entire universe shift yet again as they all watched Lynda disappear into a pile of dust and then reappear again a few seconds later.

"Doctor, Rose is still alive!" Jack cried triumphantly.

And suddenly, it didn't matter what "Bad Wolf" was or who was behind this entire bloody disaster because _Rose was still alive, _and nothing in the universe was going to keep him from getting back to her.

But the universe, it seemed had one last bombshell to drop on him. The Doctor had already been through one devastating loss only to receive a promise almost too good to be true just a few hours later - but then they uncovered the fleet of ships waiting just on the edge of the solar system. The sight of the ships alone sent a bolt of fear coursing through his veins, and suddenly he realized that he still wasn't quite done playing the old Gallifreyan general just yet.

Because it seemed that no matter how much he destroyed and how many he killed, the daleks were determined to demolish the Doctor's hope at every turn. How foolish he had been to imagine that sacrificing his entire race would ever be enough to put an end to the Time War. How many years had he suffered alone, telling himself that it was for the best and that the universe was safe?

But it seemed that it had all been for nothing. Because the Time War was somehow impossibly _here_ now - continuing to rage across all of time and space no matter what the Doctor did to try and stop it. And now it threatened to swallow the entire earth and his Rose with it. How much more would it try to steal from him before it was finally satisfied?

_No more - _and this time he _meant _it, with all his soul and all of his being. _Not Rose. Not here. Don't you dare._

"I'm going to rescue her," the Doctor stated simply, sneering at the dalek who dared to threaten the one woman in the universe who he would never give up on. "I'm going to save Rose Tyler from the middle of the dalek fleet, and then I'm going to save the earth, and then - just to finish off - I'm going to wipe every last, stinking dalek out of the sky!"

"But you have no weapons, no defenses, no plan!" the dalek protested. The Doctor was pleased to note that at least this much hadn't changed - the daleks were still just as thick as they ever were.

"Yeah," he agreed, smiling dangerously at them through the monitor. "And doesn't that just scare you to death?"

"Rose!" he called over the transmission link, absolutely refusing to give the daleks a second more of his time and attention.

"Yes, Doctor?" she called back breathlessly.

There was so much that he needed to tell her, but the Doctor settled for the one promise that he knew he could keep - the one promise that he knew would give her the hope that she needed in order to survive just long enough for him to get the chance to tell her how much he absolutely, ridiculously, helplessly _loved her._

"I'm coming to get you."


	13. Bad Wolf & The Parting of Ways (2)

It took the Doctor nine minutes and twelve seconds to make good on his promise to retrieve Rose Tyler. It only took him twenty-three more seconds to have her back in his arms once more. It was twenty-three seconds longer than he thought was right, but he was still largely being fueled by fear and anger in that moment and the Doctor needed to _know _that the dalek threat had been neutralized before he let himself pause to focus on anything else.

When he finally did rush towards her, the Doctor's mind reached for her as easily as his arms did, and he let loose a ridiculously satisfied sigh as he buried hi nose in Rose's hair and felt her warm mental presence radiating through her skin. What would he have done if he had been robbed of the chance to have something like this ever again?

"Feels like I haven't seen you in years!" she exclaimed softly as her happy relief seeped into his mind and immediately erased the fear and pain of the last few hours that had been torturing him while they had been separated.

"I told you I'd come and get you," he replied easily, pushing as much love and devotion into her mind as he could before he stepped away again. There was still so much to do - but even so, the Doctor allowed himself the indulgence of letting his lips trail lightly across the skin of her cheek before he finally released her.

"Never doubted it," she insisted with a sunny smile.

"I did," the Doctor quipped back lightly. He was distantly aware that his arms were still hanging loosely around her, seeming to refuse to let go despite the urging of his conscious mind to get moving. "You alright?" he asked, desperately needing the reassurance that she was properly safe before he attempted to face the dalek threat once more.

"Yeah. You?" Rose reached for the lapels of his jacket and the hard double-thump of his hearts immediately jump-started him back into action. The Doctor knew that if he allowed himself to linger any longer in this moment, then they'd both be stuck here all day - just mooning over each other while the daleks went on to destroy the earth unhindered.

"Not bad, been better," he muttered dismissively, finally side-stepping out of her reach to examine the steaming dalek shell currently smoldering in the entryway of his ship.

The sigh immediately sobered him to their situation once more, and he scowled at the dalek husk before him as Jack and Rose debated possibilities around him. The familiar urge to run was quickly bubbling up within him, so he did what he always did in situations like this and attempted to channel that instinct into an action that was at least semi-productive.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot of room to stretch his legs on the floor of the dalek ship outside and the daleks themselves were as difficult to converse with as ever, so there wasn't much of an outlet for his nervous energy. Every attempt at levity on his end was met with cold indifference and hate. And _these _daleks - if they could even rightfully be _called _that - were even more mad than the usual lot. The Doctor was unable to tease very much useful information out of them other than the fact that they had plans to destroy the earth and harvest the humans below for spare parts.

The chaos waiting for them back on Satellite Five didn't grant him any amount of confidence, either. His options were dwindling quickly and he had no tools, no time, and no plan. It really only left one very obvious, very dangerous solution ...

"You've got to be kidding," Jack muttered, echoing the Doctor's own disbelief.

"Give the man a medal!" the Doctor shouted, knowing that the others wouldn't hear his forced optimism.

A delta wave - easy enough, really. All he needed to do was figure out how to cram three days worth of work into twenty-two minutes.

The Doctor immediately designated Rose as his assistant - partly because he didn't want her anywhere near the front line of defense with Jack, and partly because he didn't think he could stand to have her out of his sight again.

Lynda went with the rest of them, though - brave, sweet Lynda, who had stayed behind just for him. How could the Doctor keep his promise to her now? With daleks circling around them and the threat of death so very imminent, how was he going to get her out alive? How was he going to get _any _of them out alive? Still, they each promised to do their best and the Doctor supposed that that would just have to be good enough.

But after so much time traveling with Rose, he realized that he didn't quite remember what was socially acceptable as a normal human goodbye. The Doctor was running on adrenaline and he reached for Lynda without thinking, ready to bring her in for a bracing hug before they all turned and faced down their encroaching deaths. It was only Lynda's wide, surprised eyes and Rose's look of obvious disdain that reminded him at the last minute that he shouldn't be going around hugging random women, and they settled for the universe's most awkward handshake instead.

Jack's goodbye was next and it was just as dramatic and surprisingly heartfelt as the man himself was - though the Doctor personally could have done without all of the kissing. The Doctor decided that his strange moment with Lynda was nothing compared to Jack's refusal to accept personal boundaries, but he allowed it all the same - knowing full well that it may just be the last time that he ever spoke to the man.

Once Floor 500 had been cleared out, the silence that descended upon the room was unlike any silence that the Doctor had had to deal with yet. It was comfortable, in a way - just like it always was when it was just him and Rose together. If he closed his eyes and pushed away all of the fear and anger he could almost make himself believe that they were back on the TARDIS again - just spending time in one another's company while he tinkered with something or other.

But the quiet was also eerie - a haunting sound of desolation and abandonment. It felt like they were the last two people left standing, and for all he knew, they very soon could be.

When Rose finally broke the silence to suggest that they attempt an escape with the TARDIS, the Doctor felt his hearts swell with love and admiration for her. Of course his clever girl was still quietly working, trying as desperately as he was to find some sort of loophole - some way out.

The conversation did spark his brain though - just as conversation with Rose always did. That's why he liked keeping her around him whenever he was fiddling with something or trying to be clever. The sudden idea wasn't one that he liked, though - it sat like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach and made him feel sick. It was a suicide plan - a plan that there would be no coming back from. But what other choices did they have?

"There's another thing the TARDIS could do," the Doctor suggested quietly once she had dismissed the idea as hopeful fantasy. "It could take us away. We could leave - let history take it's course. We could go to Marbella in 1989."

"Yeah, but you'd never do that," Rose reminded him, smiling as though his foolish stubbornness was something to be praised and not feared.

"No, but you could ask," he told her pointedly, his eyes watching her reaction carefully while his hands continued their desperate, hopeless work. She frowned down at the split wires in her hands as she considered his words and he realized that she truly never intended to leave him. She was determined to stay, no matter what happened, because somehow she still believed that he would find a way out for them. "Never even occurred to you, did it?"

"Well ... I'm just too good," she announced teasingly.

And what argument could he possibly have for that? Of course she was too good - too good for him, anyway. Definitely too good for this damned universe and all of its problems. And absolutely too good to die pointlessly at the hands of the daleks 198,000 years away from home.

The Doctor had one last burst of hope as the delta wave began to build, but it was instantly crushed when the readings filled the screens with a promise of death with no way out.

Well, there was _one _way out - there always had been. Rose had even touched on it, earlier. He still didn't like the plan, but what other choice did he have?

"Rose Tyler, you're a genius!" he exclaimed, jumping up and forcing his old, weary limbs into action once more. Her proud, excited smile was like sunshine on a cloudy day and he grasped her neck and placed a hard, quick kiss to her forehead. The Doctor moved quickly, hoping that she wouldn't realize that this was his attempt at saying goodbye.

The quick touch was all she needed, though, to toss one quick thought from her mind into his - _I knew you could do it_. But her unshakeable faith in him didn't fill him with hope, as it usually did. In fact, it weighed heavy right in the space between his hearts and he found that he wasn't able to look her in the eye for a second longer.

He lured her into the TARDIS with promises and clever lies, just as he always did, but this time, the Doctor left her there. When he turned back to face those gorgeous blue doors, he could feel his sentient ship in his mind, groaning a warning. She stood before him like a sentinel - judging him for his many misdeeds.

_Take her home, _he thought desperately. _Keep Rose safe. Please, just do that for me._

The TARDIS made a growling noise in his head, but her protests were oddly resigned. It seemed that even she knew that there was no arguing with him or attempting to change his mind - not now, not when Rose was in danger. So he ignored her protests as he raised his sonic and remotely activated the dematerialization sequence.

He forced himself to watch as his gorgeous ship blinked and then faded from existence before his eyes. He was unused to being on the wrong side of those doors whenever those whooshing, groaning sounds finally faded away into silence. But here he was - left behind all on his own (_again_, why did he always have to be alone?) while she flew off back into the vortex without him.

_Initiate Emergency Program One, _he commanded, feeling his connection with the TARDIS slipping through his fingers even as he fought desperately to keep her in his mind. She responded with one last final wave of hope - a promise that he didn't dare allow himself to believe in - before she moved out of his reach.

And then, just like that, she was gone - and it really was just like the Time war all over again. Her familiar mental signature disappeared from his mind like a puff of smoke and he was left so terribly, horribly _alone _that it made him ache. It wasn't as dramatic as when the entire race of Time Lords had suddenly gone silent in his head, but it was vastly more intimate and devastatingly more painful.

So he filled his nervous hands and empty mind with the only thing that he had left - and that was work. But no amount of life-threatening situations could erase the one thought running through his mind on a loop - threatening to drive him mad.

_I never told her. I just said goodbye to Rose Tyler for the last time, and I never told her that I loved her._


	14. Bad Wolf & The Parting of Ways (3)

With anger and desperation driving him, the Doctor worked harder and faster than he had in a long, long time. He refused - absolutely _refused_ \- to let the daleks get away from him this time. It didn't matter how many times he would be forced to make this impossible decision - as long as it meant blasting all of those hateful metal robots out of time and space for _good, _then he was damned well willing to take the risk of losing other innocent lives.

Timelines were converging behind his eyes and spelling out a chilling tale of death and desolation, but he blinked hard and refused to focus on them as he continued coaxing the delta wave into existence. Still, he felt every loss as a stabbing pain against his hearts, knowing that innocent human lives were coming to an end all around him and that there was nothing that he could do to save them.

He was so desperately broken and hopeless by the time that the daleks finally reached Floor 500 that he had been entirely prepared to blow the detonator for the delta wave. His hands were on the handle, ready to erase the entire fleet from existence once and for all - even if it meant taking half of the earth and himself with it.

But just as the Doctor was about to resign himself to his own gloomy end, he thought of Rose. If all had gone according to plan, the TARDIS would have taken her home to her own time on the earth below. He wondered how long it would take her to give up and say goodbye to him - for he had no doubt that she would spend quite a lot of time railing against his self-sacrificing attempt to save her life and stubbornly refuse to give up on that enduring sense of hope that she seemed to carry within her like an eternal flame.

Would she ever make up with Mickey? Would she finally get her normal, human life? Did she have descendants somewhere down there on that smoky, doomed world below? Did the memory of him live on in her grandchildren's grandchildren? Would she tell them stories of the mad old alien who took her away in his spaceship and risked everything just so that she might have the chance to live?

Suddenly, the answer was so very clear that the Doctor wondered why he had spent so much time bothering with the delta wave at all.

"Coward or killer?" the dalek emperor had asked him.

"Coward," he replied simply, knowing that it could never be any other answer - not now, not ever. "Any day." Because as long as there were innocent lives to save, as long as the Doctor was still breathing, as long as there was still time - no matter how short - he wouldn't give up on hope. He had learned that much, at least, from her.

Suddenly, there was a whisper in his mind and he began to wonder if he had somehow willed her into existence with the sheer force of his own desire. But as the whisper grew in volume and intensity, the Doctor immediately began to realize that something was _wrong_.

The TARDIS materializing behind him immediately caught the attention of every dalek in the room, so he didn't bother to spare a thought for them as he whirled around and hesitantly embraced the warm, golden sensation of his ship as their mental connection was suddenly reestablished.

_What ...? _But the rest of his question was silenced as the police box doors swung open and a shadow surrounded in the bright yellow light of time stepped out.

The song filling the Doctor's head sounded like his TARDIS, but it was different somehow. The melody was more organized and focused than it usually was. There was something _more _in it, too - something he had never encountered before.

He blinked once and suddenly Rose was standing before him, looking oddly ephemeral and hazy around the edges, but it was absolutely, undoubtedly _her_. Excitement and fear warred within the Doctor as he stared up at her, open-mouthed and completely lost for words.

"I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me," she explained, her voice oddly monotone and ringing with time.

A sudden sense of relief rushed over him and it took the Doctor longer than it should have to realize that it wasn't coming from him - it was coming from _her_.

_Rose, no ... _he thought desperately.

But there was a profound sense of peace about her that she was pouring into his mind in waves like a loving caress. _All is as it should be, _her mind insisted. The Doctor had a brief flash in his mind's eye of timelines converging once more and he understood that this was always going to happen - there was never any other way.

_How are you doing this? _he demanded, knowing full well that she shouldn't be able to speak mind-to-mind with him like this.

His question was answered with nothing more than an overwhelming, crushing wave of love and devotion and the low, echoing howl of a lone wolf ringing in his head. It didn't make much sense, but understanding washed over him anyway. Rose hadn't just looked into the TARDIS - the vortex was a _part _of her now, seeping into every cell of her body and changing her into something _new_.

She wasn't Rose Tyler anymore - or, at least, that wasn't _all _that she was (as though Rose Tyler could ever just be _one _thing). She was the Bad Wolf - something different and strange and so very, very _wrong _that it had all of the Doctor's time senses screaming a red alert.

"I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be ..." she went on evenly, as though she hadn't just ended the entire Time War with a single thought. Did she even know what she was doing? How much of this was Rose and how much of it was the Bad Wolf?

The Doctor reached out mentally in an attempt to feel out her mind, but time was burning so brightly within her that it was like trying to look directly into the heart of a sun. But buried somewhere deep beneath it all he could just manage to make out one small, desperate cry for help.

"My head ..." she sobbed weakly.

"Come here."

"It's killing me ..."

"I think you need a Doctor."

If she had been Rose in that moment, she would have laughed or rolled her eyes at him in a teasing, long-suffering way.

_Oh, please, let this work ..._ the Doctor begged silently as he took her hands in his and slowly drew her near. _Please, just let me see her smile again ..._

Rose's eyes were glowing gold as the Wolf in her swelled and the bright light threatened to swallow them both whole. The sweet song of time was beckoning the Doctor forward, luring him in and urging him closer.

He obeyed the call of both time and Rose - just as he always did - and leaned forward to accept the precious, dangerous gift that had been placed before him. He hadn't intended for it to be a kiss, but as his lips melted slowly against hers, he realized that it could never have been anything else. This, too, was destined to happen across all causalities of time and space.

It was all over far too soon, but as the power of time slowly drained out of her, the Doctor knew that he needed to break his connection with Rose in order to preserve her from the storm of fire that was currently hurtling through his own mind. He laid her on the ground as gently as possible while wars and life and death played out before his eyes more vividly than he had ever seen it before.

The Doctor saw the entirety of his long life - including days that were yet to come - stretched out from his brith and into eternity, spread out across the stars. And through all of it was Rose - though he couldn't be certain if it was really her or the Wolf, since it seemed that this new, separate creature now bore her likeness throughout all of history and the future.

There was a lingering mental embrace and a quiet promise of, _Never alone ... my Doctor ... forever ..._ before the last of the vortex left him and the heart of the TARDIS was restored. The warmth and love and peace of that promise was so convincing that the Doctor very nearly believed it as he watched his ship's doors close and silence reigned on Floor 500 once more.

The TARDIS's mental link settled into familiar solidity in his mind once more - echoing the strange promise in his thoughts and refusing to allow him to ignore it. He wearily welcomed her return and pushed his many lingering questions aside as he bent over Rose's still form below him.

Her breathing was slow and measured, but as the Doctor gently brushed his hand against the side of her face, he could feel her unconscious mind still buzzing with the remaining energy of the time vortex. He projected peace and safety into her thoughts and she let out a soft sigh as her mind stilled and subconsciously reached for him in return.

With the remaining power of the vortex still lingering in her mind, Rose's telepathic powers were even stronger than they normally were, and the Doctor choked on a gasp as she skillfully filled his mind with a sense of contentment. He stared down hard at the slack expression on her sleeping face as he tentatively felt out the edges of her presence in his mind.

She projected a single flash of soft, warm lips, golden, radiating light, and a haunting, familiar melody, before she fell deeper int unconsciousness and her mental signature slowly faded from his mind once more.


	15. Bad Wolf & The Parting of Ways (4)

A/N: I apologize in advance for the bittersweet ending. I really wanted to end on a more positive note since I love Nine so very much, but I wanted to stay as true to canon as possible, so it had to end on a goodbye ... uwu

* * *

Getting Rose back on the TARDIS took much longer than it should have - what with his body failing at a rapidly degenerating rate - but with the threat of Jack Harkness (now forever immortal and beating like a sledgehammer against his already weary time senses) at their heels, the Doctor was more eager than ever to leave Satellite Five behind and never, ever return.

As soon as they were safely back in the vortex once more, the Doctor stumbled down into a cross-legged position onto the floor grating next to where he had haphazardly lay Rose's sleeping body. His own body was exhausted to the point of collapsing, but his mind was still racing - scrambling to hold onto the memory of the golden light and the endless song of time that had been pouring through his head just a few moments ago.

There had been _so much _coursing through the time vortex - it made his time senses seem like child's play. But now that the vortex was gone, the Doctor found that all that he was able to retain were a few blurry images and half-remembered feelings.

He wondered if Rose would remember any of it with more specificity. Had she seen their two time streams entwined into eternity like he had? And, more importantly, how was such a future even _possible _in the first place?

A sudden stabbing sensation lanced through one of his kidneys and the Doctor winced painfully as his entire body threatened to crumple.

_Please wake up, Rose, _he begged silently, brushing his fingers against the back of her hand and desperately attempting to reach her mind with his own once more. _There's so much that I need to tell you ..._

It seemed that her enhanced telepathic abilities had disappeared along with the time vortex, though. The Doctor silently mourned the bright, shining moment when the two of them had been completely telepathically connected. It had felt so _right _to have her in his head like that. He wondered if he would ever be able to stop chasing that sensation ...

Another jolt of pain radiated up his right leg and the Doctor sprung to his feet in an attempt to loosen his cramped muscles. He spun dizzily on his heel as his sluggish blood flow deprived his brain of oxygen and made standing upright suddenly difficult.

He could feel the regeneration energy starting to build after about twenty-eight minutes. At forty-one minutes, Rose finally began to stir.

"What happened?" she asked, blinking dazedly up at the TARDIS ceiling above as she slowly came to again.

"Don't you remember?" the Doctor prodded, needing to know that her human mind had been able to retain.

It took her a moment to reply and the Doctor felt his hearts drop in his chest as he realized that she seemed to remember even less than he did.

"It's like ... there was this singing ..." she replied slowly.

He only half-listened to her hazy memories as he felt the regeneration energy continuing to burn in his veins. If he was lucky, they had three minutes remaining ...

"Rose Tyler," he mused softly, throwing her a bitterly amused smile. "I was going to take you to so many places. Barcelona - and not the _city _Barcelona, the _planet _Barcelona. You'd love it, fantastic place. They've got dogs with no noses! Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny!"

His mindless rambling had its intended effect and she smiled at him - falling back easily into their normal rhythm of banter. Would they still have this after he changed? Would she even want to stay? _There was so little time ..._

The countdown was still ticking away in his head, urgently reminding him that he was absolutely _wasting _his last few minutes with the woman he loved ... But how to explain his species' regenerative abilities in one minute or less?

"But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with," he warned her solemnly.

Her easy grin was finally beginning to fade, and it disappeared altogether when a shock of regeneration energy hit him right in the gut and sent him doubling over in a flash of golden light.

"Doctor!" Rose cried in fear and concern.

But he couldn't let her touch him - no matter how much he wished that he could reach out and connect with her one last time. A wave of bitter regret rolled through him and made his hearts skip a beat as he realized that he would never get to hold her hand again or feel her fingers entwined with his in that way that brought him so much comfort and reassurance - not like this, anyway. That first kiss (and please, _please_ don't let it be the last ...) hadn't been near enough - the Doctor still wanted _more_.

"Time Lords have this little trick," he explained breathlessly through gritted teeth. "It's sort of a way of cheating death."

_Stupid, stupid, stupid. _There was so much more that he needed to say, if only he had the _time ..._

"Except ... it means I'm going to change ... and I'm not going to see you again ..." And the heartbreak in her eyes when the Doctor told her that was almost enough to do him in right then and there.

_Hold on, hold on, there's so much more I need to say ..._

"And before I go ..."

"Don't say that!" she interrupted, the desperation in her voice echoing his own.

"Rose," he insisted solemnly, "before I go, I just want to tell you you were fantastic." The Doctor paused to take a deep breath, silently begging for her to smile and shake her head at him in that shyly dismissive way that she had. _Please, if this has to be goodbye, at least let me see you smile one last time ..._

"Absolutely fantastic," he went on, grinning widely in that goofy way that he knew usually lightened her mood. "And do you know what? So was I."

The countdown was getting dangerously close to zero. The Doctor felt the last few seconds as though they were happening in slow motion - the numbers ticking down before his eyes as he clung tightly to each and every single one.

_Five _\- and finally, _there _was the smile that he had been looking for as Rose nodded slightly in agreement and continued to watch him with her quietly confused expression.

_Four_ \- he met her gaze and hoped that she would somehow be able to see all of the words that he could no longer say because ...

_Three_ \- the Doctor's jaw locked tight as regeneration energy swelled through every single cell in his body and he could feel himself being slowly torn apart.

_Two _\- his mind desperately reached out and cast one last thought her way, knowing that she would never receive it with the two or three steps that remained between them ...

_One _\- _Rose Tyler, I ..._

There was a sudden, fiery explosion of energy and the Doctor's eyes screwed shut against the pain as his entire body was slowly reformed. And then, just like that, it was over and the Doctor was suddenly staring at the woman he loved through new eyes ...

* * *

A/N: Thank you so, so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and/or favorited this fic! Each and every single one of you are a treasure and your kind words inspire me more than I could possibly say!

There will be a sequel to this fic following Ten and Rose's adventures in season two so stay tuned for more! If you'd like, you can also support this fic on AO3 and Wattpad, and you can follow me on Tumblr chasingthecosmos.


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